An Eighty Percent Solution Part 6

"They're violent. I don't want any part of that." Tony had seen Jock tear off the arm of one man for not responding to a less than subtle hint to leave a lady alone, and shoot another through the neck when the welf pulled a stun grenade. Violent or no, Jock didn't know. Unfortunately.

"Jock, you've been a true friend. And for that I'll always be grateful. I may look you up after I get myself settled."

"I'd like that, sir."

"You can knock off that 'sir.' I'm just plain Tony now."

"OK, Tony."

Tony didn't offer him any money. What Jock had done was for friends.h.i.+p, and paying him would've convinced Jock that Tony was just another one of the ma.s.ses-out for himself only. Tony knew it and Jock knew it. They parted honorable men, as only honorable men know how.

She knew the disposable percomm call would be traced. The Green Action Militia had learned from an ex-Metro, one of their own now, that it took one minute, fourteen seconds to trace such a call under the best of circ.u.mstances. Thus the GAM kept all calls under forty seconds and delivered their message crystal to a different person every time.

"This is the GAM," she stated succinctly. "If you want to hear our statement, you will retrieve the recording crystal from the women's restroom, fourth stall from the end, on your third floor. You have until someone flushes."

Sometimes to mix things up they called anonymous tip hotlines, and once a media lawyer. The delivery location changed as well. Sometimes it arrived in place of the morning paper, and other times it might steer a person through seven levels of scavenger hunt.

They used only standard Fuji commercial recording crystals from a different supplier each time, picking a random device from each lot. Sonya purposely left her right pinky fingerprint on each crystal so they knew exactly whom they were dealing with. As no one had a name to match to that print or her epithelial DNA-except on other crystals-she stayed as safe as any other Nil.

Sonya dropped the ring comm to the ground and crushed it with her heel. To make certain, she stomped it three more times. She moved immediately to the edge of the not-yet-complete level 144 TriMet platform in downtown Corvallis. For security's sake she needed to be at least a full 600 meters from this place in under a minute, the top response time of even Interpol.

The average Metro response time fell into the dismal category of days, but she had to a.s.sume they'd set a trap this one time and somehow knew exactly when she would transmit. With her survival-and that of the whole organization-at stake, Sonya played to win.

She took the easy way to get away quickly from the platform-she jumped. Her stomach once again reminded her that this wasn't her favorite of tricks. The nausea never quite elicited regurgitation, but it always came close. Her mind silently counted to nine full seconds before her fingers wove a pattern in the air.

As she landed, at almost ninety meters per second, her body lit up like a miniature sun. The brightness receded rapidly, though she still glowed as she walked away. Waves of heat distortion also wreathed her as the kinetic impact energy flowed away. The few people at ground level who observed the flash or her new thermal aura chose wisely to mind their own business. People with that kind of power at their disposal didn't make good victims.

The opulence of this meeting room matched, if not exceeded, the previous. Despite imports from Mars costing nearly ten thousand credits per kilogram in s.h.i.+pping alone, a Martian lacquered-sandstone table, weighing close to a metric ton, dominated a room of orange, rust and umber. The ten matching hand-carved chairs sat arranged for the powerful individuals in attendance. Vivaldi played in the background as they entered to take their seats.

"I want to thank you all for the change in venue," said one. "I hope you will be comfortable here. If there's anything my staff can provide, you have but to ask." If sacrificing a live virgin would've been the whim of even one member, the staff would merely have asked what s.e.x and hair color, and the blood would be spilled before the request went cold on the guest's lips.

"Thank you. The first order of business is the GAM Initiative," announced Nanogate as they all took their seats. "Phase two has moved quite according to plan, with another unexpected bonus. The girlfriend not only was bought to stay out of the way but to actively partic.i.p.ate in our plan. This reduces operational security risks considerably. The motivation was first order greed."

"Have there been any contraindications?"

"Only one. A single employee of the subject's normal bar told him that he believes it's a corporate plot. As this is intrinsically obvious, it doesn't warrant further action."

"And that employee?"

"Nothing. We don't want to alarm the subject-he's already skittish enough. The employee, a bar tough, is a Nil, so I propose no action against him.

"I call for a vote. Opposed?" Silence was his answer. "Then there is nothing further to report. Oh, one minor item to note. Once the subject has contacted the GAM, we'll almost certainly be unable to monitor his actions as we are now."

"Then how are we going to be able to gauge his effectiveness to plan?"

"Only by observing the results. Clearly this falls into the 'results oriented management' category defined in the late twentieth century. It's not nearly as effective as our current invasive management techniques, but it's the only course open to us with this scheme."

"Agreed. I suggest we move on to the next topic."

"I'd like to bring to your attention New Zealand's proposed execution of one of Taste Dynamics's midlevel managers for the industrial accident of May third. It's a message of sorts that I suggest we respond to vigorously..."

Her breath wheezed as her chest went up and down steadily in deep sleep. A tribute to his fast thinking, Tony thought. His visit held no rationale, not even the merest whisper of a reason. It took quite a good deal of time and effort to find her, not to mention the three-hundred credit bribe to have a nurse let him in.

No different than any other hospital room for the last three centuries, the stuffy room smelled of alcohol and bleach. The cramped s.p.a.ce held only a single horribly uncomfortable bed and two equally uncomfortable straight back chairs in sickly green. Odd instruments clung to the off-white walls like lichen adorning an undersea rock. Her standard hospital issue blue gown could've been on any patient all the way back to antiquity. It split down the back and barely covered the hip nearest him. A small plastic tube from the wall dumped oxygen right into her nostrils.

She held all the changes of his life together like a keystone. Save a life, lose your own. Some dark, twisted force seemed to have manipulated that equity around to apply to his life. While probability played a cruel role, he felt more at work than mere fate.

He sat quietly, barely moving. His own breathing matched in rhythm to that of the old woman in the bed. A nurse came in to take blood pressure and temperature readings as if she didn't trust their remote monitors. Tony slipped the nurse another hundred for good measure. A dull ache behind his eyes pulled at his thoughts, but none coalesced.

Some time later, before the sun lightened the sky enough to call it morning, the patient's eyes flickered open. Groggily, the woman looked over at Tony as the sleep fled from her eyes. "Do I know you?" Even as she said it, her expression started in realization. The volume of her voice matched the early morning hour. "You're from the bus! They said you saved my life."

"I just did what my grandfather taught me."

"I could sue you for malpractice, you know. I've had five lawyers a day in here trying to get me to do just that."

Tony sat silently. He had nothing to offer.

Her eyes softened. "I have absolutely no intention of doing so. I just want to know why you risked yourself. No one else would have."

"Maybe that's why. There are too many 'no ones' in this world and not enough 'some ones.' I wanted to make mine count."

"You are a very odd man."

"I've never considered myself all that odd."

"Well, perhaps unusual would be a better descriptive."

Tony looked into her wizened face. It held only honesty. Wrinkles and age-spotted hands showed her veins beneath the thinned skin. He realized he'd never really seen an old person. Oh, they were around, but he'd never really looked. They just blended into the background.

"I guess you could call me unusual," he admitted. "Is this bad?"

"No, not at all. The world needs unusual people." She sighed for a moment before continuing. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but did you know I'm going to die anyway?"

Tony instantly saw the futility of his sacrifice in a blinding flash.

"Of course you didn't know. How could you? I have a rare disease in my liver and I'll be dead within the week. I can feel it pulling at me now, deep inside."

This interview had played itself out in Tony's head much differently on his way here. He must regain control. He needed to look into her eyes as he asked his question. Tony felt that he'd know if she were telling the truth. On this one thing he must be positive.

"Do you know why they're doing this to me?"

"Doing what?" Nothing but surprise wrinkled her face. "I don't understand."

"You don't know. It's all coincidence." Tony's shoulders slumped and he turned away.

"I don't understand."

Tony decided to spare the woman the grief he held like a poison within him. "It's nothing," he said, turning back with a smile on his face. They sat quietly looking at one another for a few moments.

"I am happy to have met you, sir. It is rare to find someone so...sure of himself."

"I'm not all that sure."

"You are. You just don't see it from the outside. You see only your own insecurities, your own problems, your own 'if onlys.' The face you project to the world is much stronger."

"I wish I could see that sometimes."

"You will in time. Take it from someone who's been there and back." The woman could see the doubt on his face. "Trust. I see the world hasn't yet beaten it from you. I will trust you so that you can trust me. Did you pick up my parcel?"

Tony suddenly stretched higher in his chair. He'd almost forgotten that the kitten had been hers.

"I see that you did. I give it to you as a gift of the love you showed me. Just care for it as much as you did me."

A tear formed in the corner of Tony's eye. "But I'm going to lose it all. I'll have no way to care for myself, much less..." Tony trailed off because of the monitors that surely recorded all that went on in the room.

So like his own mother, this old woman drew him out and soon Tony told his entire story. She listened, without surprise, as the tale unfolded. With remarkable strength and speed, she grabbed one of his hands and pulled it beneath the covers. Her skin felt rough against his. Something pressed across the palm of his hand as she began speaking in loud, agitated tones.

"You're a criminal! Get out of here! How could I have been talking to such a louse? No, lower than a louse. NURSE! Get this vermin out of here!" She released his hand gently and with her eyes, much softer than the tone in her voice, she gestured for him to the door. She smiled brightly at him for all of two seconds until the orderly entered.

Tony's mind whirled with all the incongruities. It took several milliseconds for realization to dawn.

"Get this filth out of here!" she screamed, coughing heavily. "He's a cat lover and probably grows his own vegetables!"

"Sir, if you'll please step this way," the bribed nurse said, softly. "We can't have our patients disturbed."

"I understand. I don't want anyone upset. I'll leave. My apologies, ma'am." She turned away from him as he left.

He waited until he fully exited the hospital before looking at his hand. Written there, in ink, he found, "GAM, Sonya, ground level, Arcade Aerobics."

Realization dawned at its own pace. He glanced up in the direction of his benefactress's room and shook his head slowly back and forth. She had offered no name and asked him no name in return.

A servant, dressed in traditional coat and tails, rang a tiny silver bell and entered the Mars room. Conversation ceased as he silently marched the length of the room to the heart-stirring beat of "Ride of the Valkyries." There he delivered a tiny slip of handmade paper to his master and exited in the same manner as he had entered. Nanogate very deliberately opened and read the note.

"A tiny interruption if you please. I believe we have a break. In the GAM project, our subject has made contact.

"Unfortunately, the primary contact, an old woman in the hospital, has died before we could question her. The subject disappeared from his usual haunts shortly after his interview with her."

Cautious smiles accompanied his next statement. "Phase two appears to be complete."

Implement-Phase Three The remains of asphalt streets, obsolete with the advent of lift vehicles, now only served as potholed walkways. The usual overcrowded throngs that populated them during the day had retreated long ago to the relative safety of their homes or hovels. A myriad of colorful characters took their place. An undoc.u.mented body mechanic glanced hopefully in Tony's direction, but just as quickly looked back to his portable lab, working on something that looked vaguely like a human leg in vermilion. A not-so-proficient pickpocket accosted Tony. "Lay off, weeble," Tony said, backhanding the young boy who grabbed him in the crotch to distract him. The youth staggered briefly before fleeing the scene, his middle finger extended above his head in a universal gesture.

Half a dozen burns gathered together in a doorway halfway down the street, laughing quietly at nothing much. A ubiquitous ground-level drunk heaved his lunch into the alley, prompting half a dozen rats to scurry out and partake of the unexpected bounty.

"What am I doing here?" Tony asked himself outside an establishment whose ancient neon lights declared it "-rcade Aerobics," the first "A" conspicuously dark. Further down the street, two junkies pummeled a normal-looking citizen with a meter and a half length of corroded pipe and size fourteen boots.

"Good place to be chewed up and spit out." Tony took a deep breath and marched across the street. Without hesitation he opened the door that might alter his wrecked life even further.

A low-resolution recording of surf sounds and beach birds matched the dust-covered plastic palm trees which nominally shaded the foyer. Fake coconuts littered a heap of sand against a grainy solido of a stylized Pacific Ocean. Broken scan lines in the bad representation added electronic gibberish horizontally. In a merchant stand ostensibly made of gra.s.s and bamboo, a fit young woman bearing a Star of David tattooed on her bald head didn't quite ignore him.

"May I help you?"

"I'm looking for Sonya."

"Reeeeally, corpie," she said, drawing it out almost in an insult.

"Ex-corpie, actually."

"Suit yourself. You wanna sign up for Advanced Pilates?"

"Uh, sure."

The young woman laughed without smiling. "You couldn't even do the elephant," she added, smirking at him.

"I guess I'll show my ignorance about the topic, because I have to a.s.sume you aren't talking about having s.e.xual relations with extinct African beasts."

Once again she offered a mirthless laugh. "No. So I've now ruled out that you want Pilates. What do you really want, corpie?"

"I told you, I'm looking for Sonya. Someone said I could find her here."

"Look, I don't have time for anyone that doesn't want to enroll in cla.s.ses or become a member of the gym. There ain't no Sonya working here."

"What if I were to give you a hundred greens." Mentally he hoped he had the money on him. He didn't think she'd take a credit chip. His worry dissipated almost instantly.

"Get nilled, Metro."

"I'm not a cop, pizda."

"Sure you ain't. Even if you were, I don't nark out anyone. Besides, I don't know no Sonya." The young woman's eyes lost focus in the age-old look of someone concentrating on her neural interface rather than the here and now. A square-jawed face strutted in to the reception area clad only in a thong, bristling with more muscle than a prize fighter. The bulky man nodded as he strode behind the shack and through a door that magically buzzed just before he touched it.

Without missing a beat, Tony reached for his wallet. "I'd like to join the gym. Can I have a tour?" Her eyes lost the glazed-over look and got hungry. "I'll even put down a deposit."

"Nonrefundable."

"Of course. Will sixty do it?"

"One hundred." The five plastic bills Tony found in his pocket evaporated like a teaspoon full of water on the sunny side of Mercury. Tony turned and pushed the door the young woman absently pointed toward, just as it buzzed to let him in.

In marked contrast to the facility's sc.u.mmy lobby and ground-level location, a surprising panoply of s.h.i.+ning, high-tech bio-mechanical exercise equipment greeted Tony in the basketball-court-sized floor s.p.a.ce. After his bold move to get into the gym, Tony looked around, drawing a blank as only four people occupied the exercise area and none of them really fit his mental picture of a Sonya.

The square-jawed face stood in front of a free weight stand, buckling a wide Kevlar belt around his middle. As Tony entered, the square jaw smiled enough to show a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth that belonged in the maw of a shark rather than a human.